What is the use of solid oxidizer tanks?

[Gr1n]

I am unable to find information about what is the purpose of both solid oxidizer tanks (small and large).

I have a feeling that the idea behind them is to help with the range limitations of your rocket engine, but I have just tested in sandbox the following;

 

Rocket with full steam engine and large oxylite tank with 900 kg full of oxylite. The range is 6 tiles, because steam engine consumes 25kg each tile and it has 150kg steam. when I move those 6 tiles the rocket is stranded with 900 kg of oxylite, so it's useless.

 

So, what are the circumstances where solid oxidizer does anything?

 

I have also added a tank with its amount limited to 0 and the rocket can not launch without filling it, even if the engine is full and the same rocket without the empty oxidizer tank says it's ready to launch. So... why adding an empty tank does a rocket unable to launch?

 

I'm also in doubt with the liquid tanks because it does not specify which liquid needs to go in, and adding liquid water or liquid oxygen doesn't seem to help a rocket with steam engine.

[NeoDeusMachina]

Steam engines do not need oxidizer (in any form) nor fuel tanks. As far as I know, they are directly fueled via a gas input port on the engine itself. You have to fill it up with steam.

Some engines need a combination of fuel and oxidizer. For example, sucrose engine, petroleum engines (small and large), and hydrogen engine.

The amount of oxidizer you need depends on how much fuel you will be burning and what type of oxidizer you are using. For example, if you use fertilizer (solid oxidizer), you will need 1 kg of fertilizer for each kg of fuel. Oxilite (solid oxidizer) has a ratio of 1:2, which means you need 1 kg of oxilite for each 2 kg of fuel. Finally, liquid oxygen (liquid oxidizer) has a ratio of 1:4. So, you will need 1 kg of liquid oxygen for each 4 kg of fuel.

Some of those engines (for example, sucrose and small petroleum engines) are fueled directly on the engine. Others like the large petroleum engine of hydrogen rocket, require additional fuel tank. The type of fuel (liquid) you need to put in the liquid fuel tank(s) depends on which engine you have built on your rocket.

Hope this summary helps you a little.

You can find a lot of useful information on the wiki:

https://oxygennotincluded.fandom.com/wiki/Rocketry_(Spaced_Out)

[Gr1n]

Thank you very much for your answer NeoDeusMachina. You have indeed helped me greatly~!

It now makes a whole lot of sense what it says in the rocket about the Range remaining, which is the lowest of either value divided by fuel burnt per tile. Because they both need to be burnt to move! It confused me so much that I tested a steam engine and the oxydizer didn't matter...

I don't think there's any official or unofficial documentation about which engines have this particularity, that they burn both fuel and oxydizer to move.

 

To make this straight; The maximum range of early game rockets is defined by their engine?

Carbon dioxide engine is 4 tiles (100kg max, 25kg per tile) and requires to have enough oxylizer to burn.

Sugar engine is 4 tiles (450kg max, 112.5kg per tile) and requires to have enough oxylizer to burn.

Steam engine is 6 tiles.

 

While late game engines (hydrogen and petroleum) have their maximum range defined by the liquid tanks?

2 large liquid tanks of hydrogen are 1800 kg, burning at 100k per tile that's 18 range?

 

Whether you answer these last questions or not you have unstucked me from my main question. Big thanks <3

[NeoDeusMachina]

The CO2 engine doesn't need oxidizer at all.

Note that all engines have been rebalanced and the changes are currently being tested on the testing branch, so as soon as the next patch hits (countdown at the bottom of the main menu), the information on the wiki will not be up to date anymore. You can read more about the balance changes by going through the last couple of patch notes if you are interested. For example, hydrogen rocket has had its range significantly increased. All engines now use 1 hex worth of fuel to take off and to land, etc.

But I think you got the basics of rocket fuel figured out now

[Steve8]

Every time you literally burn fuel you need an oxidizer. Steam and CO2 work by expelling pressurized gasses.

[Gr1n]

@NeoDeusMachina Oh I see. I was just testing your statements and they all are true, including the latest about co2 not requiring oxidizer

Thanks for the countdown info as well!

 

@Steve8 That makes a whole lot of sense. Thank you.

[sakura_sk]

If I'm not mistaken (because I've changed this table so many times...) this is how rocket information look like in the live branch:

The current testing branch has changed multiple things, as @NeoDeusMachina mentioned, (and I'm not sure if it will change a couple more...) but this is how rockets look so far:

Spoiler

The range of rockets changed to balance the change of launching/landing (they consume fuel now meaning you need to count all tiles for rocket distance. There is a tooltip when you are in the starmap to help, showing current count and tiles range the rocket has.

Update 477822 changed engine power of all engines, resulting in different speeds per rocket and boosted steam and sugar engines a little. I started posting rocket stats in this topic but I'll probably remake an old topic to include the new information about rockets when the update is live

 

[Gr1n]

Those tables are very important to make informed decisions. In fact I have already created my spreadsheet with very similar data than those stats.

Thank you @sakura_sk for your contribution!